Nielsenhttp://www.adweek.com/taxonomy/term/3878/all
enFacebook Increases Transparency By Updating Video and Third-Party Viewability Metricshttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-increases-transparency-updating-video-and-third-party-viewability-metrics-174654
Lauren Johnson<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Nov/facebook-video-metrics-hed-2016.png"> <p>
In light of its <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-gave-ad-agencies-inflated-video-viewing-metric-2-years-173676" target="_blank">recent video fiasco</a>&nbsp;and <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news-gallery/technology/what-marketers-need-know-about-how-todays-top-social-platforms-measure-video-174064" target="_blank">growing pressure from advertisers</a> to open up its so-called walled garden for more third-party verification, Facebook today is announcing a ton of changes to its measurement system.</p>
<p>
Facebook has added a new metric called &quot;video watches to 100 percent,&quot; which tracks both completed views and completed audio.&nbsp;&quot;Video watches to 100 percent&quot; replaces a previous stat that was called &quot;video views to 100 percent.&quot; With the addition of the new metric, Facebook estimates that there will be a 35 percent increase in the count of watches to 100 percent.</p>
<p>
Mark Rabkin, head of ads engineering at Facebook, told Adweek that his company has underestimated these views and is adding the new metric because, &quot;when audio and video plays on the phone, sometimes the audio track and the video track get a few milliseconds out of alignment,&quot; he said. &quot;Then you have to make a choice&mdash;when do you count the video as finished? Is it when the audio track ends or when the video track ends?&quot;</p>
<p>
Facebook will provide new insights into campaigns, and it also cut deals with comScore and Nielsen to track display viewability.</p>
<p>
Facebook initially began offering third-party video viewability <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-just-made-2-big-changes-appease-advertisers-viewability-166978" target="_blank">about a year ago</a> with Moat and Integral Ad Science and now plans to open up third-party display viewability to measure text and photo ads through its new partnerships with comScore and Nielsen. Similar to video viewability, display viewability will track when and how long ads appears on a page; these measurement offerings will begin rolling it out in the first quarter of 2017.</p>
<p>
The display viewability stats will not change how marketers pay for ads. Instead, the goal is to give marketers more transparency and verification into their Facebook campaigns, which they can then analyze on their own through third-party partners.</p>
<p>
&quot;This is our No. 1 requested third-party verification feedback from clients,&quot; Rabkin said. &quot;Together, these four partners cover the vast majority of the market share in terms of what we&#39;ve heard from our top customers and which providers they&#39;re choosing to use.&quot;</p>
<p>
Facebook is also extending some viewability stats to non-advertisers so that publishers and users can track video views. As Facebook has grown as a video platform in the past few years, video clips have increasingly taken over more real estate in news feeds, causing publishers and brands to crank out custom content for the site. However, up until now, publishers and brands have not been privy to some of the same stats that advertisers get access to.</p>
<p>
Now, Facebook video and Facebook Live video will be counted in Nielsen&#39;s digital content ratings in a way &quot;that&#39;s comparable to television,&quot; Rabkin said.</p>
<p>
<strong>More metrics issues</strong><br />
In addition to new viewability options, Facebook is also working to become more transparent about its stats after reporting it found a few mistakes recently that could lead to big changes for marketers. All told, Facebook&#39;s ads manager provides advertisers with more than 220 metrics, Rabkin said.</p>
<p>
Most notably, Facebook reports that it found a bug with one metric that miscalculated organic daily reach for Pages. Up until now, Facebook has reported daily reach as the sum of daily users that visit a Page over weekly or 28-day time periods. However, that stat does not account for users who visit a Page multiple times. So the same folks were sometimes getting counted again and again. Going forward, reach stats will factor out repeat visitors, which Facebook estimates could cause weekly visitor counts to decrease by 33 percent and 28-day visitor stats to shrink by 55 percent. The company said it expects to fix the issue in the coming weeks.</p>
<p>
&quot;We intended for that total to be de-duplicated for repeat visitors, but instead in that one summary number repeat visitors were counted,&quot; Rabkin said. &quot;All of our reach data that we show on Page view insights was unaffected and all the underlying data is fine.&quot;</p>
<p>
Also on Pages, Facebook is beginning to calculate reach counts based on viewability. Previously, Facebook has tracked reach count based on when someone refreshes the news feed and a post is placed in a feed&mdash;now it will track views under stricter viewability guidelines. Under Facebook&#39;s current guidelines, that means reach count will be calculated instantly when a post appears in a news feed or after it&#39;s been viewed for 10 seconds. With stricter rules, Facebook warns marketers that they may see up to a 20 percent dip in reported reach, and it plans to make the update in the coming months.</p>
<p>
In terms of Instant Articles, Facebook&#39;s fast-loading mobile pages for publishers, the company claims that it has overestimated the average time spent per article by 7 percent to 8 percent since August. Facebook says it miscalculated the number because it was using a histogram of average time spent instead of calculating the average time spent reading an article divided by total views.</p>
<p>
For the past nine months, Facebook has worked on clarifying the vernacular of its metrics to make terms easier for marketers to understand, with a few of those changes being announced today. For example, the term &quot;three-second video view&quot; is replacing the more generic &quot;video view,&quot; and &quot;website view of content&quot; is replacing &quot;view content.&quot; With video views, Facebook is tacking on the word &quot;aggregate&quot; to its three-second, 10-second and 30-second definitions of video views to explain to marketers that these views represent at least&mdash;and possibly a bit more&mdash;the specified number of seconds.</p>
<p>
<strong>Marketer feedback</strong><br />
To convey all of this across to the advertising community, Facebook is launching a measurement council that consists of agency, brand and tech execs who will regularly discuss measurement issues like viewability, attribution and video standardization issues. Facebook says that it will announce the measurement council&#39;s members in the coming weeks.</p>
<p>
Facebook is also launching a new blog called Metrics FYI that&#39;s similar to Facebook&#39;s <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/news/category/news-feed-fyi/" target="_blank">News Feed FYI blog,</a> but it&nbsp;will focus specifically on measurement changes.</p>
<p>
Facebook already has a group called Client Council that entails brand CMOs and agency leaders that give input about the site&#39;s advertising options. There are even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/news/Introducing-the-EMEA-Client-Council" target="_blank">regional and global councils.</a></p>
<p>
&quot;Our goal is to collect back what are the most pressing issues for our customers right now&mdash;some of them are, of course, already known, and then we&#39;ll be working from there,&quot; Rabkin said. &quot;I think the primary focus will be representatives from agencies and the large advertisers who actually have to integrate these measurement results into their real business outcomes. But of course, we&#39;ll have representatives and feedback on the council about the whole flow and everyone who is helping out at every step of the way.&quot;<br />
&nbsp;</p>
TechnologyFacebookFacebookMeasurementMoatNielsenthird-party viewabilityWed, 16 Nov 2016 14:27:26 +0000174654 at http://www.adweek.comNielsen Will Measure TV Viewing in Places Like Bars, Hotels, Gyms and the Officehttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-measure-tv-viewing-places-bars-hotels-gyms-and-office-174238
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Oct/tv-bar-nielsen-hed-2016.png"> <p>
Nielsen is taking a big step today to close one of its biggest TV ratings measurement gaps: its inability to accurately account for out-of-home viewing in public places like sports bars, gyms and hotels.</p>
<p>
In April, the company is launching a new national television out-of-home measurement service using its portable people meter, or PPM, technology and panelists. Clients who subscribe to Nielsen&#39;s new service will receive ratings estimates (including C3 and C7) that combine in-home viewing&mdash;which is based on the company&#39;s national TV ratings panel&mdash;with this out-of-home viewing using its PPM panels.</p>
<p>
Nielsen said the service&mdash;which will provide ratings for live through live-plus-7 days of viewing&mdash;will launch in April, and contain data going back to January 2017. Shortly after launch, it will add data that stretches back to September.</p>
<p>
The new offering will launch as a stand-alone service, but Nielsen plans to eventually add the out-of-home data to its national ratings.</p>
<p>
The PPM device, which panelists carry with them, will allow Nielsen to measure television viewing in places like restaurants, bars, airports and waiting rooms. Nielsen will rely on data from more than 75,000 PPM panelists located in 44 local markets, which the company can use to project out-of-home viewing in more than half of the U.S. population.</p>
<p>
&quot;Measuring where consumers watch content, regardless of platform and location, is at the core of Nielsen Total Audience, and this includes out-of-home viewing,&quot; said Sara Erichson, evp, client solutions and audience insights for Nielsen. &quot;While consumers have always watched TV outside the home, that viewing has not been measured. This new measurement enables both buyers and sellers to understand the incremental reach of advertising messages.&quot;</p>
<p>
The measurement will be a boon to news and sports networks like CNN and ESPN, which have a large out-of-home audience that has never been properly measured, so it&#39;s no surprise both companies are on board with Nielsen&#39;s new service.</p>
<p>
&quot;We know that ESPN is viewed virtually anywhere there is a screen&ndash;from sports bars to gyms, hotels and the workplace,&quot; said Artie Bulgrin, svp of global research and analytics for ESPN, in a statement. &quot;While C3, C7 and beyond are useful to measuring catch-up viewing in the home, this new service gives us the ability to capture out-of-home viewing precisely as it happens, and helps us double down on the power and delivery of live sports, while transacting on new, valuable audience segments for advertisers.&quot;&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Added Howard Shimmel, chief research officer at Turner, &quot;For brands like CNN and Turner Sports with huge and valuable out-of-home audiences, we need to be able to measure consumption regardless of the platform, screen or location. In collaboration with Nielsen, we were first to market using PPM technology for custom out-of-home solutions for CNN. Nielsen&#39;s new National TV Out-of-Home Measurement Service will help us drive these capabilities forward.&quot;</p>
<p>
Nielsen has been announcing several ratings overhauls as the company works to <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-complete-its-total-audience-measurement-rollout-march-173586" target="_blank">complete its total audience measurement rollout by March.</a>&nbsp;It will finally <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-finally-stop-using-paper-tv-diaries-2018-173501" target="_blank">stop using paper TV diaries,</a>&nbsp;which are relied upon in 140 local markets, in 2018, and last month launched its <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/continuing-its-total-audience-rollout-nielsen-will-launch-digital-content-ratings-friday-173724" target="_blank">digital content ratings metric.</a></p>
TelevisionNielsenRatingstotal audience measurementMon, 24 Oct 2016 17:13:04 +0000174238 at http://www.adweek.comNielsen Marketing Cloud Just Improved Its Digital Couponing Targeting Toolshttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/nielsen-marketing-cloud-just-improved-its-digital-couponing-targeting-tools-174107
Christopher Heine<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Jun/ncs-benchmarks-hed-2016.png"> <p>
<a href="http://www.adweek.com/topic/nielsen" target="_blank">Nielsen</a> has partnered with digital coupon specialist RevTrax to bolster Nielsen Marketing Cloud, which can now help clients create offers that should, in theory, generate more sales.</p>
<p>
The chief concept is to take the cloud&#39;s machine-learning and data-modeling technologies&mdash;that continuously tweak ad creative and offers as new data rolls in from across the web&mdash;and combine them with RevTrax&#39;s SmartOffers. The RevTrax software personalizes online coupons that consumers can load on their smartphones, add to loyalty cards, print out at home, etc.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
Consumer-packaged-goods giant Kimberly-Clark is the first client to utilize the new applications in Nielsen Marketing Cloud. When a consumer visits a Kimberly-Clark website, RevTrax&#39;s ad server pings the cloud to access Nielsen&#39;s consumer data, such as purchase history, before employing the data to serve a targeted coupon. The coded offer is captured by the cloud after a purchase occurs, even if it happens in a brick-and-mortar store. The cloud feeds a stream of instructions to RevTrax SmartOffers based on the incoming sales and engagement data, and consumer segments are constantly updated. The brand marketer&#39;s own data trove is in the mix, too. So, in effect, it&#39;s a meshing of first-party and third-party data to attempt to achieve&mdash;in industry parlance&mdash;&quot;one-to-one marketing.&quot;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.optimizely.com/ab-testing/" target="_blank">A/B testing,</a> a direct-response mainstay tactic, is also an integral part of the whole idea.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;CPG is a very strong vertical for [us],&quot; explained Damian Garbaccio, Nielsen Marketing Cloud evp, commercial. &quot;But it can be applied to all verticals.&quot;&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The RevTrax partnership augments Nielsen&#39;s efforts in the last couple of years to build a marketing cloud that strongly competes with Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and IBM. For instance, Nielsen bought media planning software company PointLogic <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-room/2016/nielsen-acquires-pointlogic.html" target="_blank">in March,</a> and it <a href="http://adexchanger.com/digital-tv/nielsen-acquires-data-marketing-company-exelate/" target="_blank">purchased</a>&nbsp;data management platform eXelate <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-room/2015/nielsen-acquires-exelate.html" target="_blank">about a year earlier</a>. Both acquirees have been absorbed into Nielsen Marketing Cloud.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The long game entails offering programmatic solutions for everything from digital couponing and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_retargeting" target="_blank">behavioral retargeting</a> to TV advertising. Garbaccio mentioned the measurement capabilities Nielsen has in mind when it comes to programmatic television while pointing to his company&#39;s continued focus on marketing powered by artificial intelligence.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;It&#39;s the same dynamic we would provide in digital,&quot; he said. &quot;It could be with a Turner [Broadcasting] or a DirecTV. As long as they have the ability to match back the IDs to households or an individual ... [marketers] can test offers.&quot;</p>
Technologycross channel marketingdirect marketingKimberly Clarkmarketing cloudsNielsenNielsen Marketing CloudRetailTue, 18 Oct 2016 12:22:18 +0000174107 at http://www.adweek.comEven as TV Creators Come Around on Integrations, Buyers Are Starting to Look Elsewherehttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/even-tv-creators-come-around-integrations-buyers-are-starting-look-elsewhere-174027
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/pepsi-empire-hed-2016.png"> <p>
After years of treating &quot;integration&quot; as a dirty word, the people behind many of TV&#39;s biggest shows have changed their tune and are embracing them as something beneficial to their shows, rather than a punishment that must be endured. &quot;We like having that extra money that allows us to do some scenes, or buy music, we otherwise wouldn&#39;t be able to,&quot; said <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/why-next-season-could-be-new-golden-age-family-sitcom-171447" target="_blank">Modern Family</a> co-creator Steve Levitan. &quot;In some cases, it actually helps the scene. It sounds more natural to say, &#39;Who wants to go to Target with me?&#39; than, &#39;Who wants to go to the department store with me?&#39;&quot;</p>
<p>
Yet in a surprising role reversal, as TV&#39;s showrunners (including a dozen that spoke with Adweek) are more receptive than ever to integrations, buyers and brands no longer have the same enthusiasm for them. &quot;It used to be the showcase in a buy, to say we brought in integration,&quot; said Neil Vendetti, president of investment at Zenith. &quot;Now we&#39;re talking about integrations with clients a bit less.&quot;</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Oct/integration-tt-quote.png" style="width: 350px; height: 175px; float: right;" />That sentiment is reflected in new data from Nielsen TV Brand Effect, which indicates that the number of integrations in original, nonsports prime-time programming on the five broadcast networks has fallen each year, from 4,701 in the 2013-14 season to 4,538 in the 2015-16 season.</p>
<p>
That&#39;s not to say that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/fox-planning-major-new-brand-partnerships-and-integrations-next-season-172878" target="_blank">TV integrations</a> aren&#39;t still plentiful, or high profile. In last season&#39;s most successful partnership, Empire featured a multi-episode arc in which rising star Jamal Lyon (Jussie Smollett) was wooed by Pepsi to endorse the soda. As the cast sat down to watch the ad, Empire cut to commercial where the actual spot played. &quot;That was pure kismet because we broke a story in the [writers] room where we said, Jamal is going to get a major endorsement, and it&#39;s going to be a threat to [his father] Lucious because it means he&#39;s going to be a bigger star,&quot; said Empire showrunner Ilene Chaiken. &quot;Then I got a call from the network, saying, &#39;We have this opportunity with Pepsi,&#39; and it was exactly the story we were telling.&quot;</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Oct/integration-tt.png" style="width: 350px; height: 383px; float: right;" />But the mindset of many advertisers is much different from when integrations were the shiny new toy. &quot;Nine or 10 years ago, there was a big migration toward product placement. Then we moved away from it because it became too overt and almost too generic,&quot; said Maureen Bosetti, chief investment officer at Initiative. Back then, &quot;the demand for integrations was greater than the supply,&quot; said Melissa Fallon, svp of digital, film and TV at The Marketing Arm. &quot;The networks were scrambling to find solutions for the declining impressions for advertising. Now there&#39;s more solutions.&quot;</p>
<p>
Those include branded content, which &quot;has filled in the gap&quot; as some have backed away from integrations, said Vendetti. In-house branded content studios have popped up at several media companies, including NBCUniversal, Viacom and Turner. Branded content requires less hoops for brands to jump through than integrations, which have to be incorporated into a storyline; unlike integrations, the finished spot can be featured on the brand&#39;s channels as well.</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, other brands that would like to be integrated into shows aren&#39;t allowed at the table. &quot;Emerging brands like Lyft are looking for that increased awareness, affinity and brand identification, but they don&#39;t meet the media buy threshold, so they don&#39;t even get to play,&quot; said Fallon. &quot;It&#39;s not that the producers aren&#39;t interested in those brands; it&#39;s that the networks are shutting them down.&quot;</p>
<p>
Until that changes, the showrunners, tasked with producing movie-quality episodes each week on a TV budget, said they&#39;re happy to take advantage of any opportunities to organically work a brand into their series. &quot;I know that has been an issue in the past with certain members of the Writers Guild, but if it means more money on the screen, then I&#39;m all for it,&quot; said Melissa Rosenberg, showrunner of Marvel&#39;s Jessica Jones on Netflix. &quot;Fake brands just pop, so whenever we can use real brands, I prefer it. And if they&#39;ll give it to us for free, then I prefer that!&quot;</p>
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<p>
<em>This story first appeared in the October 17, 2016 issue of Adweek magazine.<br />
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Advertising & BrandingTelevisionbrand integrationsJessica JonesMagazine ContentModern FamilyNetflixNielsenThe Marketing ArmZenithMon, 17 Oct 2016 23:02:04 +0000174027 at http://www.adweek.comDemographics or Data: Which One Will Dominate Future Ratings Measurement?http://www.adweek.com/news/television/which-will-dominate-future-ratings-measurement-demographics-or-data-173745
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Sep/future-ratings-tv-hed-2016.png"> <p>
Nielsen <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-complete-its-total-audience-measurement-rollout-march-173586" target="_blank">is rolling out its total audience measurement tool by next March,</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;the company is already looking ahead to how it&mdash;and the industry&mdash;will measure viewing habits into the next decade.</p>
<p>
Speaking at a New York Advertising Week panel about ratings measurement in 2025, Megan Clarken, Nielsen&#39;s president of product leadership, talked about the company&#39;s launch of digital content ratings on Friday, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/continuing-its-total-audience-rollout-nielsen-will-launch-digital-content-ratings-friday-173724" target="_blank">a story Adweek broke this morning.</a>&nbsp;&quot;It&#39;s very exciting for us,&quot; Clarken said. &quot;It was only dreamed about eight years ago, and here it is.&quot;<br />
<br />
Over the next eight or so years, Nielsen is looking to attribute devices to people and provide better targeting capabilities. The company is rolling out a new meter across its various panels. (Earlier this month, it said it will finally <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-finally-stop-using-paper-tv-diaries-2018-173501" target="_blank">phase out paper TV ratings diaries,</a>&nbsp;which are still used in 140 local markets, &quot;in early 2018.&quot;) The new nanometers are twice the size of a mobile phone, and one-fourth the size of the current meters, said Clarken. The company is also working on revamping the people meters and is testing having its panelists wear Fitbit-like devices &quot;to complement and eventually replace the device they use today.&quot;</p>
<p>
The company will be keeping an eye on the behavior of millennials and whether their viewing habits change as they get older. Clarken said millennials will be more likely to watch more live TV as they get older, follow trends, watch more VOD than their 35-49 counterparts and use more connected TV devices. They&#39;ll play less video games but will participate in more augmented reality like Pokemon Go.</p>
<p>
During her talk, Clarken discussed the future of brand advertising and targeted, or addressable, advertising, and said Nielsen believes age and gender demographics will continue to be the core base for both. Age and gender is the only demographic break with &quot;a known universe,&quot; said Clarken. &quot;We know the size of it, so we can report on market share.&quot;</p>
<p>
However, she said, representative panels (i.e., exactly what Nielsen does) will be necessary to take the biases out of &quot;big data&quot; like Facebook, which doesn&#39;t provide info for users under 13 or account for shared devices. &quot;Because of fragmentation and this proliferation of channels and platforms, we will always need big data to come in and help with the measurement, but it will always need to be weighted and balanced by a representative sample,&quot; Clarken said.</p>
<p>
But some of the panelists who spoke after Clarken&#39;s presentation disagreed. &quot;It scares me to think about the year 2025, and we&#39;re still transacting TV using age/sex demographics,&quot; said Howard Shimmel, chief research officer for Turner Broadcasting. &quot;If we do this, we&#39;re going to leave lots of ROI for [advertisers] untapped because we&#39;re not doing things like targeting.&quot; Instead, he said, foundational metrics should take a backseat to driving the most ROI.</p>
<p>
Lyle Schwartz, managing partner for GroupM, said that&#39;s already how he and his clients operate. &quot;We don&#39;t plan on demographics,&quot; he said, noting that he focuses on underlying data like ROI, which GroupM&#39;s research team generates in-house. &quot;That&#39;s the information I have to negotiate off of,&quot; said Schwartz, adding that &quot;if the industry can&#39;t agree on metrics, fine&mdash;we will do it ourselves.&quot;</p>
<p>
Schwartz argued that &quot;you can&#39;t lose the dynamic of each medium,&quot; even with apples-to-apples metrics because radio, TV and magazines each bring something different and valuable to the type for clients. &quot;We work with our clients to make sure that we&#39;re putting their money in the right place at the right time, with the right message, which ironically was something written in 1958,&quot; he said. &quot;The only thing different now is that we have much more opportunities to do it.&quot;</p>
<p>
The panelists also discussed ways to drive down the ad-blocking number for video, which some suggested is driven by overtargeted and forced video streams.</p>
<p>
&quot;We literally don&#39;t serve video content to people that have a video ad blocker on. It&#39;s that simple. We&#39;ll take that hit,&quot; said Marc DeBevoise, president and COO, CBS Interactive. &quot;We&#39;re putting content out there that we believe is good enough that you won&#39;t want to block the ad that you&#39;ll want the content enough.&quot;</p>
<p>
David Levy, who earlier today was named evp of nonlinear revenue for Fox Networks Group, said that while it&#39;s important to measure attention, that can&#39;t be a single metric &quot;or we go to the lowest common denominator.&quot; He later added, &quot;If we actually believe that we can make more for delivering better attention, we will, and that&#39;s where we need to get to to reduce that ad-blocking number&quot;</p>
<p>
Strangely, even though the ratings measurement panel included a Facebook exec (Brad Smallwood, vp of measurement science), no mention was made of last week&#39;s news that for two years, Facebook had given ad agencies a viewing metric that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-gave-ad-agencies-inflated-video-viewing-metric-2-years-173676" target="_blank">was inflated by as much as 80 percent.</a> On Monday, however, Facebook&#39;s vp of global marketing solutions, Carolyn Everson, told an Advertising Week audience that the company regretted its actions, and that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-regrets-not-going-public-sooner-video-metrics-miscalculations-173723" target="_blank">&quot;we will need to do better.&quot;</a></p>
TelevisionAdvertising WeekCabledigital content ratingsMegan ClarkenNetworksNielsenRatingstotal audience measurementVideoTue, 27 Sep 2016 19:09:19 +0000173745 at http://www.adweek.comContinuing Its Total Audience Rollout, Nielsen Will Launch Digital Content Ratings on Friday http://www.adweek.com/news/television/continuing-its-total-audience-rollout-nielsen-will-launch-digital-content-ratings-friday-173724
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Sep/buzzfeed-freeform-aol-hed-2016.png"> <p>
Another piece of Nielsen&#39;s total audience measurement rollout has fallen into place, as the company will launch its new digital content ratings metric this week. The ratings metric measures audiences across desktop and mobile devices for all content, including video, audio and text.</p>
<p>
Digital content ratings, which is a core component of the company&#39;s <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/first-look-nielsen-s-total-audience-measurement-and-how-it-will-change-industry-167661" target="_blank">total audience measurement tool,</a> will be available for all Nielsen clients beginning on Friday, the company announced this morning. The syndicated release provides a daily measure of audiences with the same apples-to-apples metrics used for linear ratings.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
The syndicated clients involved with digital content ratings include BuzzFeed, Vice, Mashable, PopSugar, Discovery, Freeform, Kik, AOL, A&amp;E and Tastemade.</p>
<p>
Last week, Nielsen solidified plans for its total audience measurement rollout, announcing that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-complete-its-total-audience-measurement-rollout-march-173586" target="_blank">its total content ratings will be available to all Nielsen clients,</a> including all networks, agencies, analysts and press, by March 1. But the digital content ratings will be available a full five months earlier than that.</p>
<p>
The company&#39;s digital content ratings differ from the total content ratings, which are video-focused and contain &quot;de-duplicated&quot; numbers, revealing the total unduplicated audience by removing multiple viewers by the same person on different platforms. &quot;The core audience metrics, which are used as currency for settlement and ad planning, are part of total content ratings,&quot; said David Wong, svp of product leadership for Nielsen.</p>
<p>
So while clients could add the linear ratings and digital content ratings together to approximate a program&#39;s total content rating, it won&#39;t be accurate, said Wong.</p>
<p>
The digital content ratings are similar to Nielsen&#39;s digital ad ratings, which are not a syndicated product because they are campaign-specific and contain proprietary information about the brands involved. Nielsen said its digital content ratings will help digital and television publishers monetize video launches, live coverage and other moments, while agencies and advertisers can incorporate that data into their media plans.</p>
<p>
For each brand that Nielsen measures for digital content ratings, it offers two sets of metrics. One is an overall view of time spent, reach and audiences that view all content (video, audio and text) on that particular brand overall, and the other is a deeper dive into video metrics, like amount of time spent and average audience. Publishers can decide whether to allow Nielsen to release information on individual videos, which &quot;most of the longform folks&quot; will do,&quot; said Wong.</p>
<p>
The early rollout &quot;provides our clients time in the fall to get used to it, to start to use it publicly, and to have data which is fully consistent with the digital measurements in full content ratings over the next months,&quot; which will help them get up to speed as total content ratings are rolled out early next year, said Wong.</p>
<p>
Until now, the only clients with access to these metrics were the 50-plus participating TV and digital media brands that have been involved in the evaluation process of total audience measurement, as well as companies with digital-only content like BuzzFeed and Mashable.</p>
<p>
&quot;Delivering syndicated digital content ratings is a tremendous milestone, and provides publishers, agencies and advertisers powerful insights that help them understand the full value of their content across digital platforms,&quot; said Megan Clarken, Nielsen&#39;s president of product leadership, in a statement.</p>
<p>
Nielsen&#39;s digital content ratings announcement included statements from several of the syndicated clients. &quot;Chat is at the core of the smartphone era, and we&#39;re leading the way in showing brands what&#39;s possible with this new medium,&quot; said Josh Jacobs, president of Kik Services at Kik. &quot;We&#39;re looking forward to integrating Nielsen digital content ratings to demonstrate the value and impact of engaging teens through chat.&quot;</p>
<p>
Added Edwin Wong, vp, research and insights, BuzzFeed, &quot;We&#39;re very excited about the potential of Nielsen&#39;s digital content and advertising ratings and the future of more robust third party measurement features that cover the breadth of BuzzFeed&#39;s cross-platform content: from fans watching Tasty videos on Facebook mobile, to the latest BuzzFeed News investigation on Google&#39;s AMP.&quot;</p>
TelevisionBuzzfeeddigital content ratingsMashableMobileNielsenPopSugarRatingstotal audience measurementTotal Content RatingsVideoTue, 27 Sep 2016 13:00:01 +0000173724 at http://www.adweek.comHow Nielsen Is Shedding Old Perceptions, and Building New Businesseshttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/how-nielsen-shedding-old-perceptions-and-building-new-businesses-173654
David Gianatasio<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/fea-nielsen-cover-01-2016.png"> <p>
Two weeks ago, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/nielsen-says-mainstream-consumers-really-are-interested-virtual-reality-173665" target="_blank">Nielsen</a> began phasing out its paper TV ratings diaries for the 140 local markets in which the antiquated system is still active. By the middle of next year, Nielsen says, it will provide electronic measurement across all of its 210 designated market areas.</p>
<p>
How big a deal is that? Well, that depends on your point of view.</p>
<p>
All told, Nielsen data underpins and informs a staggering $70 billion in annual ad sales, but these days the paper diaries account for less than 5 percent of the company&#39;s TV business. Nielsen&#39;s national ratings system and most of its local DMAs long ago adopted set-top-box data and other modern methods to calculate viewing numbers.</p>
<p>
Given those parameters, industry watchers like Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser believe that Nielsen&#39;s move to trash its remaining logbooks &quot;wasn&#39;t very important, considering how little of their revenue was associated with diaries.&quot; But others maintain the symbolic significance is profound, as pulping the diaries marks a key break with Nielsen&#39;s analog past and another stride toward its pervasively digital future.</p>
<p>
Mostly, it&#39;s a matter of perception. Nielsen is often criticized as slow to change, sluggish to adapt its processes to suit the complex needs of clients across a media and marketing landscape in constant flux. The continued use of paper journals by any portion of <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-has-increased-its-us-tv-homes-estimate-first-time-2-years-173157" target="_blank">Nielsen&#39;s 40,000 viewing households</a> (encompassing 100,000 viewers) hurts the company&#39;s image. Indeed, a New York Times story reminding readers of the existence of the diaries this past February unleashed a fresh wave of scorn in the marketplace.</p>
<p>
Nielsen <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-more-precise-data-science-will-be-advertisings-ultimate-savior-171395" target="_blank">CEO Mitch Barns</a> believes such attacks are unfounded and ignore the sweeping transformation of the 93-year-old company under his guidance. Nielsen has built out its business in bold new directions, he says, offering increasingly sophisticated analytics and measurement tools to help media and marketing players compete at scale. &quot;If you look at our business right now and at the markets we serve, they&#39;re changing at a faster pace than what has previously been true in our history,&quot; says Barns. &quot;And so we&#39;ve had to keep pace with that.&quot;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Sep/fea-mitch-barnes-01-2016.png" width="652" /></p>
<p>
Nielsen&#39;s evolution is twofold, encompassing both sides of the company&#39;s operations: &quot;Watch&quot; and &quot;Buy.&quot; Watch is the better known of the two, tracking media consumption in 45 markets and covering 80 percent of media spend worldwide. Flying somewhat under the radar is Nielsen Buy, which provides market analysis, retail measurement and sales insights to the packaged-goods industry in 106 global markets, representing 90 percent of the world&#39;s GDP.</p>
<p>
Some might be surprised to learn that Buy is larger than Watch, and that&#39;s been true for quite some time. In the first half of 2016, Buy revenue was $1.65 billion, up nearly 4 percent, while Watch tallied $1.44 billion, a 6 percent gain. (Total revenue in 2015 was $6.17 billion.)</p>
<p>
Barns views the continued growth and, to an extent, the convergence of Watch and Buy as essential to Nielsen positioning itself as an indispensable corporate partner, helping marketers boost sales and setting a new industry standard for determining ratings and ad prices.</p>
<p>
What&#39;s more, he foresees increased automation driving that process. &quot;As we continue to leverage technology in a bigger way ... we move much more to a data-as-a-service and software- as-a-service model,&quot; he says, much as Adobe evolved from selling software in a box to providing a cloud-based suite of tools and services. Nielsen&#39;s implementation of this concept is called Nielsen Marketing Cloud. Launched this past spring, it is based in large part on technology and expertise the company gained from last year&#39;s acquisition of eXelate.</p>
<p>
Nielsen Marketing Cloud gives the company&#39;s clients faster access to data and analysis, which helps them make more informed marketing and media decisions. The system facilitates cross-channel planning by letting clients connect in real time to mobile, online, over-the-top TV, video, social and other platforms. It lets them analyze how advertising and content mold consumers&#39; purchase decisions. That means advertisers can see which platforms or specific types of media are doing best with their target audiences at any given moment and shift ad dollars accordingly. &quot;It takes different product capabilities, connects them all into this interoperable system,&quot; says Barns. &quot;It&#39;s off to a great start in the U.S., and we also, just in the summer, launched it in Europe.&quot;</p>
<p>
The company is exploring other new frontiers, with wide-ranging efforts to diversify. One example is Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience. Launched through the 2015 purchase of Innerscope Research, the practice explores the subconscious responses that drive consumer behaviors.</p>
<p>
Then, there&#39;s Nielsen Innovate, an early-stage investment fund that focuses on areas of client interest. In just two years of operation, the fund has backed 19 startups. Such efforts, according to John Burbank, Nielsen&#39;s president of strategic initiatives, ensure that the company &quot;is prepared for a future in which our clients are going to be facing challenges from new types of competitors and new interests from consumers.&quot;</p>
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<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Sep/fea-steve-hasker-01-2016.png" /></div>
<p>
<strong>Evolution&nbsp;</strong><br />
An increasingly challenging marketplace drives Nielsen&#39;s Buy-side evolution, as CPG companies demand intricate data for business decisions, often with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. To that end, Nielsen has cast itself as a performance management firm, providing guidance for navigating the sales funnel.</p>
<p>
Ainsworth Pet Nutrition&mdash;best known for its Rachael Ray Nutrish brand&mdash;has been a Buy client for more than 10 years. Nielsen&#39;s &quot;work has a significant influence on decisions we make with our products, how we approach a market, new-product development, advertising, ROI and channel development,&quot; says Walt Wdowiak, Ainsworth&#39;s vp, innovation and insights.</p>
<p>
In the Buy process, Nielsen collects data from a variety of sources. These include checkout scans from both brick-and-mortar and online venues. Such data covers pricing, purchase dates and other variables. In addition to those retail scans, Nielsen&#39;s Homescan Shopper Panel&mdash;totaling 100,000 households in the U.S.&mdash;provides key insights about purchasing habits based on factors such as age, gender, geography, income, race, level of education and family size.</p>
<p>
The data drill-down can get amazingly granular. For example, Nielsen can peel out sales for specific products purchased by Hispanic households&mdash;or for acculturated Hispanic households vs. non-acculturated Hispanics&mdash;and report back on where and when these consumers bought those items, and in which amounts. It can even tell clients which competitors are popular among the demographic. This allows Nielsen to weigh buying behaviors across numerous product types and categories.</p>
<p>
The end result: Nielsen can tell clients which of their offerings are best-sellers or busts at, for example, a particular convenience mart among acculturated, college-educated, millennial Hispanic families with 2.5 children. Also, it could explain <em>why</em> those products were popular or passed over by the demo. Nielsen can identify issues such as out-of-stock situations, distribution gaps or lack of promotion, helping clients adjust their efforts accordingly. Plus, its product innovation practice&mdash;formerly known as Bases but still called that by many clients&mdash;allows companies to test concepts, packaging and messaging with consumers. All that helps marketers target consumers with increased precision and maximize their ROI.</p>
<div class="news-article-image" style="margin: 15px 0px 15px 15px; float: right;">
<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Sep/fea-jamere-jackson-01-2016.png" /></div>
<p>
<strong>Transformation</strong><br />
&quot;Measuring all of those different purchasing occasions and all of those different retail outlets, doing it in a way that&#39;s comparable, so you can put it all together and provide the view of the total consumer&mdash;<em>that&#39;s</em> the transformation that&#39;s happening on the Buy side of our business,&quot; Barns says.</p>
<p>
Last year, Ainsworth tapped into Nielsen&#39;s Buy insights in a big way. Among its goals: increase super-premium pet food sales in mainstream supermarkets and at mass merchandisers, channels where the marketer exclusively offers its products. (Such venues have fallen off the radar for animal owners seeking super premium pet food, most of whom shop at specialty pet stores&mdash;depriving the grocery and mass merchandising industry of sales.)</p>
<p>
The Ainsworth project involved detailed research and consumer interviews, in-store &quot;shop-alongs&quot; and a market simulation study to gauge retail demand and determine which changes would boost sales. &quot;The outcome was incredibly successful,&quot; Wdowiak says, with Nielsen suggesting ways to improve the &quot;aisle experience&quot; and create more effective signage and promotions. Per Nielsen, adopting these recommendations could yield a 30 percent increase in overall super-premium pet food sales.</p>
<p>
Despite such offerings, analysts believe it will be a long haul for Nielsen Buy to amass anywhere near the level of marketplace clout Watch has earned through the years. &quot;The Watch side is what drives the business forward, given the likely higher revenue growth associated with digital media and media accountability versus the CPG-focused industries that drive much of the Buy businesses,&quot; says Wieser of Pivotal Research. Higher margins on the Watch side are also a factor, he says. Plus, &quot;clients don&#39;t need to spend money if they have their own [sales] metrics they prefer to track. That&#39;s not possible with paid media. Every major media owner knows they would be negotiating blindly if they aren&#39;t able to reference the [Nielsen] data that their negotiating counterparts are referencing.&quot;</p>
<p>
Nielsen has long enjoyed a virtual TV ratings monopoly&mdash;but competition has intensified of late, with IRI, Kantar and others getting in. Digital media measurement firm comScore, through its merger with TV measurement company Rentrak, seems especially well positioned to make Nielsen feel some heat.</p>
<p>
In recent years, this charged climate helped spur Watch-side innovation. &quot;When I arrived here six years ago, we basically had a U.S. TV measurement franchise and not much else,&quot; says Nielsen COO Steve Hasker. &quot;Now, we have a global total audience and advanced analytics franchise. It really is a complete transformation.&quot;</p>
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<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Sep/fea-nielsen-sidebar-01-2016.png" /></div>
<p>
While killing off the paper diaries is part of that transition, Nielsen&#39;s Total Audience metric, designed to measure viewing across mobile, streaming and on-demand media (in addition to traditional TV), represents the company&#39;s ultimate reboot for the multiscreen age. Nielsen began developing the tool two years ago, long after the streaming revolution took hold, and the company has absorbed countless broadsides for being late to the game by failing to measure the performance of series across outlets including Amazon, Hulu and Netflix. Media executives groused that their shows were getting short-changed on viewer measurement&mdash;therefore losing out on potential ad dollars.</p>
<p>
While most execs applauded the Total Audience rollout, some were disappointed that those numbers didn&#39;t factor into 2016 upfront ad-buying decisions, because the product hadn&#39;t been syndicated across the entire industry, allowing players to access each other&#39;s data.</p>
<p>
&quot;We expect in the fall that they will be reflecting our audience across pretty much all of the digital devices and streaming devices, as well as traditional VOD, DVR&mdash;and of course, live television,&quot; says David Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS. &quot;I think by 2017, we will have the stability and the degree of transparency among the different entities that would be adequate to do deals on the basis of Total Audience, and we would be comfortable doing that.&quot; (Nielsen effectively confirmed Poltrack&#39;s hunch last week, saying the product will attain full-scale rollout by March 2017. )</p>
<p>
<strong>Confluence&nbsp;</strong><br />
While Total Audience gains traction, Nielsen sees the confluence of Watch and Buy as a powerful revenue generator and means of closer integration with marketers and media companies of all shapes and sizes. In fact, that process has already begun. &quot;While those traditionally existed as two fairly separate and distinct parts of our business, you&#39;re seeing us connect these sides&mdash;what consumers watch connected to what consumers buy&mdash;to create a third part of our business,&quot; known internally as Marketing Effectiveness, says Barns. &quot;That has been growing at a solid double-digit pace, in fact, north of 20 percent for the last several quarters. That growth&#39;s going to continue, as far as we can tell.&quot;</p>
<p>
With all this change, one may think Nielsen would be well on the way to shedding its reputation of adapting sluggishly. Some think that may not be the case. &quot;I don&#39;t think anything will quiet naysayers about Nielsen,&quot; says Pivotal&#39;s Wieser. &quot;Too many industry participants have a vested interest in being negative about Nielsen&mdash;regardless of whether or not those perspectives are warranted&mdash;given Nielsen&#39;s pseudo-monopolistic presence in currency-related measurement for TV.&quot;</p>
<p>
It&#39;s unlikely Barns will give up easily. And the more he builds out Nielsen&#39;s buy side, the more buy-in he&#39;ll earn.</p>
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<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Sep/cover-footer-nielsen-2016.png" /></div>
<br />
<p>
<em>This story first appeared in the September 26, 2016 issue of Adweek magazine.<br />
<a href="/subscribe-appeared" target="_blank">Click here to subscribe.</a></em></p>
TelevisionMagazine ContentMitch BarnsNielsenPivotal Research GroupRachael RayMon, 26 Sep 2016 11:10:55 +0000173654 at http://www.adweek.comLive TV Declines Have Slowed, but Homes With Netflix and Hulu Watch Fewer Channelshttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/live-tv-declines-have-slowed-homes-netflix-and-hulu-watch-fewer-channels-173698
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Sep/nielsen-live-netflix-hed-2016.png"> <p>
Even with more outlets and devices competing for audiences&#39; attention, viewers aren&#39;t moving away from live TV as much as they did a year ago, according to Nielsen&#39;s second-quarter 2016 Total Audience Report released today.</p>
<p>
The report found that live TV declines are starting to level off. In the second quarter of this year, adults spent an average of four hours, nine minutes watching live TV, which is down two minutes from the same period a year ago. But there was an eight-minute decrease from Q2 2014 to Q2 2015.</p>
<p>
Nielsen&#39;s reports examine a new theme each quarter, such as <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/how-millennials-consume-tv-depends-which-stage-life-theyre-170393" target="_blank">the viewing habits of millennials.</a>&nbsp;This time around, the report focused on the extent to which consumers are using all the options available to them.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Sep/svod-pg10-02-2016.png" width="652" /></p>
<p>
Among all adults, average DVR/time-shifted TV usage increased one minute for the quarter, to 30 minutes per day, after being flat the previous year.</p>
<p>
During the same period, smartphone usage jumped an average of 34 minutes a day, to one hour, 43 minutes overall. A year earlier, the increase was just nine minutes. Tablet usage for apps and the web also surged, from 20 minutes in the second quarter of 2015 to 32 minutes this year. (The 2014-to-2015 increase was seven minutes.)</p>
<p>
Elsewhere, Nielsen found that viewers now have an average of 205.9 channels available to them and watch just 9.6 percent of them (19.8) per month. That&#39;s down from 208 channels in the second quarter of 2015 due to factors like cord shaving. African Americans receive an average of 218 channels and watch 24.6 percent of those per month (11.3 percent), while Asian Americans have 185.2 channels on average and watch 13.8 (7.4 percent) per month.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Sep/svod-pg3-03-2016.png" width="652" /></p>
<p>
A year ago, the overall average was three channels more, but the average number of channels viewed per month was almost the same&mdash;19.9 compared to 19.8&mdash;which indicates that viewers are engaging in cord shaving and getting rid of networks they don&#39;t watch.</p>
<p>
Homes with access to SVOD services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime watch an average of one channel less a month than the national average&mdash;18.6 compared with 19.8&mdash;but homes with SVOD access, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/us-adults-consume-entire-hour-more-media-day-they-did-just-last-year-172218" target="_blank">which now represent half of all U.S. households,</a>&nbsp;also are younger and have higher incomes, a demographic that tends to watch less television (and therefore has fewer channels).&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/2016_Sep/svod-pg5-01-2016.png" width="652" /></p>
<p>
Radio continues to be the second-most-popular medium&mdash;adults spend one hour, 52 minutes listening to the radio each day.</p>
<p>
The full Total Audience Report is available <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2016/the-nielsen-total-audience-report-q2-2016.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
TelevisionCableNetworksNielsenVideoMon, 26 Sep 2016 04:01:01 +0000173698 at http://www.adweek.comNielsen Will Complete Its Total Audience Measurement Rollout by Marchhttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-complete-its-total-audience-measurement-rollout-march-173586
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2015_Oct/total-audience-hed-2015.png"> <p>
Almost a year after taking the wraps off its multiplatform total audience measurement tool, Nielsen said it has set a release schedule and will complete the rollout of its total content ratings, or TCR, by March 1.</p>
<p>
Currently, the company has given access to the data&mdash;which includes apples-to-apples measurement of all viewing across linear TV, DVR, VOD, connected TV devices (Roku, Apple TV and Xbox), mobile, PC and tablets&mdash;to the 50-plus participating TV and digital media brands that have been involved in the evaluation process. Until Aug. 1, those networks and brands only had access to their own data and no one else&#39;s.</p>
<p>
Through the end of this year, Nielsen will make &quot;select data&quot; available to agencies and the media. On Jan. 1, the full total content ratings data will also become available to agencies, while the media will continue to only receive the select data.</p>
<p>
Finally, on March 1, the metrics will be available to all Nielsen clients, including all networks, analysts and press. Until then, clients who receive access to the full data will only be able to use it for &quot;internal&quot; purposes, said Nielsen, as they evaluate the data before the full release in March.</p>
<p>
It was almost a year ago that Nielsen gave Adweek a <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/first-look-nielsen-s-total-audience-measurement-and-how-it-will-change-industry-167661e" target="_blank">first look at its total audience measurement plans.</a>&nbsp;At the time, executives had hoped to roll it out in time for this year&#39;s upfront presentations, but by March, the company had <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsens-new-coo-explains-why-total-audience-measurement-taking-so-long-170260" target="_blank">pushed back the timetable.</a></p>
<p>
The delay, said Steve Hasker, global president and COO, was caused by &quot;the reality of working through the data with clients, getting them comfortable with the new data sets that they&#39;re seeing.&quot;</p>
<p>
&quot;That process &hellip; I don&#39;t know that we underestimated it, but we can never spend enough time with our clients analyzing that data, helping them understand it and figure out what sort of decisions it&#39;s going to lead to,&quot; Hasker said.</p>
<p>
While many networks and buyers have criticized Nielsen&#39;s foot dragging when it came to deploying total audience measurement over the past year, today&#39;s announcement included statements of support from execs at several participating networks, including CBS, AMC Networks, A+E Networks, ESPN, Univision, Fox and ABC.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&quot;CBS&#39;s content is being consumed across multiple platforms and devices,&quot; said David Poltrack, chief research officer of CBS Corp. and president of CBS Vision. &quot;We have been working closely with Nielsen on total audience since last year, and we are pleased with the results thus far. We are deep in the process of evaluating the data and considering its impact on the market, our programming and our advertising partners. We are in support of the syndication schedule for the data, and we are looking forward to working with Nielsen to further expand measurement across even more platforms in the near future.&quot;</p>
<p>
Lisa Heimann, vp of multiplatform research for Disney/ABC, added: &quot;As Nielsen produces total content ratings as part of its total audience service, necessary time is needed for its clients and their partners to review and understand the changes in both how metrics are calculated versus existing Nielsen measurement as well as time to evaluate the inclusion of viewing on platforms not currently measured. We support a regimented schedule in the evaluation of this new data to ensure the integrity of the marketplace represented.&quot;</p>
<p>
Nielsen set its total audience measurement plans just days after the company made another long-awaited move, announcing that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-finally-stop-using-paper-tv-diaries-2018-173501" target="_blank">it will finally phase out paper TV ratings diaries,</a>&nbsp;which are still used in 140 local markets, &quot;in early 2018.&quot;</p>
TelevisionCableNetworksNielsenRatingstotal audience measurementTotal Content RatingsVideoMon, 19 Sep 2016 18:27:54 +0000173586 at http://www.adweek.comNielsen Will Finally Stop Using Paper TV Diaries in 2018http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-finally-stop-using-paper-tv-diaries-2018-173501
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Sep/nielsen-tv-diary-hed-2016.png"> <p>
RIP, Nielsen paper TV diaries. Eventually.</p>
<p>
Nielsen is finally phasing out its antiquated paper TV diary ratings system, which it still uses to record ratings in 140 local markets.</p>
<p>
The company said today that by mid-2017, it will provide electronic measurement in its local TV ratings across all 210 of its designated market areas (DMAs).</p>
<p>
The company will integrate return path data for set-top boxes and other electronic measurement&mdash;the same method it uses for its national ratings&mdash;which will allow it to do away with the paper TV diaries for good, &quot;in early 2018.&quot;</p>
<p>
Nielsen had continued to rely on paper diaries&mdash;in which Nielsen households record their television viewing by hand&mdash;even as it rolls out its&nbsp;<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsens-new-coo-explains-why-total-audience-measurement-taking-so-long-170260" target="_blank">total audience measurement</a> tool, which it hopes will become the new industry standard for multiplatform ratings measurement.</p>
<p>
A <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/business/media/nielsen-playing-catch-up-as-tv-viewing-habits-change-and-digital-rivals-spring-up.html?_r=0" target="_blank">February New York Times story</a> about Nielsen highlighted the continued existence of paper diaries, which led to another round of criticism about the company&#39;s inability to keep up with the drastic shift in television viewing habits.</p>
<p>
In March, Steve Hasker, Nielsen&#39;s global president and COO, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsens-new-coo-explains-why-total-audience-measurement-taking-so-long-170260" target="_blank">told Adweek</a> that the company was in the process of phasing out the paper diaries by 2017, though he noted that &quot;we only use paper diaries to measure well less than 5 percent of TV advertising. Nobody argues in principal that we should move beyond the diaries, and we&#39;ve been looking to do so since I&#39;ve been around in the last five years.&quot;</p>
<p>
Hasker said at the time that larger networks were at least partially to blame in the delay to moving away from paper diaries. &quot;The diary tends to favor the larger media properties because respondents, when they fill out a diary, are more likely to record their significant viewing time and less likely to record their less significant viewing time,&quot; he said. &quot;As a result, the larger networks benefit from the diaries, and that creates a resistance from those clients to move beyond the diaries.&quot;</p>
TelevisionCableNetworksNielsenRatingsSteve Haskertotal audience measurementWed, 14 Sep 2016 18:50:59 +0000173501 at http://www.adweek.comThis Study From Nielsen and Google Says YouTube and Linear TV Help Each Otherhttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/nielsen-study-commissioned-google-says-youtube-and-linear-tv-help-each-other-173155
Marty Swant<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Aug/youtube-phone-tv-hed-2016.png"> <p>
YouTube and TV&mdash;two <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/after-11-years-digital-video-youtube-wants-take-tv-sized-budgets-171156">competing mediums</a> fighting for the same eyeballs and advertising dollars&mdash;might actually be able to find common ground.</p>
<p>
A Nielsen case study commissioned by Google found that TV reach seems to drive YouTube engagement, and in turn, YouTube engagement drives TV reach. In other words, according to the report, people who view a TV program&#39;s content on YouTube are more likely to tune in to the actual show. Because of that, as TV audience increases, so does YouTube viewership.</p>
<p>
According to Nielsen, digital advertising in the U.S. has been rising 15 percent every year since 2012 with no signs of slowing down. (In fact, according to <a href="http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Ad-Spending-Surpass-TV-Next-Year/1013671">eMarketer</a>, digital ad spending will surpass TV as soon as next year.) But the seemingly symbiotic relationship could be a sign for advertisers that both mediums might be better than just one.</p>
<p>
&quot;The notion that YouTube can bring new people into a show while also keeping current fans connected presents a big opportunity for both programmers, as well as advertisers, who seek to capture audiences whenever and wherever they watch premium content,&quot; said Jonathan Zepp, Google&#39;s head of North American partnerships for YouTube.</p>
<p>
To conduct the study, Nielsen evaluated 30 TV shows&mdash;including genres such as comedy, competition, drama and talk shows&mdash;while analyzing historical data from YouTube and TV currency data from Nielsen&#39;s own sources. Researchers then looked to see how the two formats moved in relationship with each other apart from promotions, seasonality, brand effect and show engagement. Researchers also studied habits of those who watched TV content on YouTube and compared it to those who didn&#39;t.</p>
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The results were &quot;significant,&quot; according to the case study of Nielsen&#39;s findings. For example, there was an 18 percent increase in tune-in on TV for leading talk shows amongst an audience that watched YouTube content of the shows.</p>
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&quot;As digital video viewership continues to grow on platforms such as YouTube, advertisers, agencies and TV programmers have an opportunity to leverage the connection between digital views and TV audiences,&quot; according to Nielsen&#39;s report. &quot;Nielsen&#39;s research shows that YouTube engagement through views and uploads is connected to TV reach or bringing more people to trial the show, and in general playing a part in keeping viewers connected to the TV program.&quot;</p>
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That&#39;s not to say everything is destined to be all rosy. In fact, the digital giant has been increasingly at odds with its linear ancestor. In May, Time Warner Cable <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/time-warner-cable-media-pushes-back-after-youtubes-bold-claim-about-audience-reach-171330">pushed back</a> on YouTube&#39;s <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/heres-what-youtube-promised-advertisers-its-star-studded-brandcast-2016-171316">claim</a> that it reached more mobile viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 than any TV network. Days before that, Magna Global announced its<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/magna-global-pours-250-million-youtube-ads-tv-audiences-drop-171242"> plans to spend $250 million on YouTube advertising</a> to become Google Preferred&#39;s biggest upfront deal yet.</p>
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So will YouTube and Big TV become closer frenemies than previously thought? Only time&mdash;and maybe Nielsen&mdash;can tell.</p>
TechnologyTelevisionGoogleGoogleGoogle PreferredLinear TVNetwork TelevisionNielsenYoutubeFri, 26 Aug 2016 16:42:55 +0000173155 at http://www.adweek.comNielsen Has Increased Its U.S. TV Homes Estimate for the First Time in 2 Yearshttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-has-increased-its-us-tv-homes-estimate-first-time-2-years-173157
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Aug/family-tv-homes-hed-2016.png"> <p>
Audiences may no longer watch television the same way they did even a few years ago, but more U.S. households now have access to TV content than ever before, according to Nielsen.</p>
<p>
The company announced today that it estimates there will be 118.4 million TV homes in the U.S. for the 2016-17 season, which kicks off on Monday, Sept. 19. That&#39;s a 2 million increase from the 116.4 million estimate that Nielsen used during the past two television seasons.</p>
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Nielsen also estimates that 301.7 million people in those U.S. TV households are 2 and older, which is a 1.6 percent jump over last year&#39;s 296.8 million figure.</p>
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To arrive at its national television household universe estimates, Nielsen combines U.S. Census Bureau data with its own national TV panel, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/here-are-answers-all-your-questions-about-nielsens-total-audience-measurement-167663" target="_blank">which the company doubled in January</a> from 20,000 to 40,000 households, for a total of 100,000 viewers.</p>
<p>
Additionally, Nielsen found that 96 percent of U.S. homes now have televisions that receive traditional TV signals via broadcast, cable, satellite or a broadband internet connection. The number is up 0.8 percent from last year&#39;s estimate of 95.2 percent (which had declined from 96.1 percent a year earlier, in 2014.)</p>
<p>
The company defines TV households as those homes that have at least one working TV or monitor that can deliver video via an antenna, cable set top box, satellite receiver and/or a broadband connection. This would account for cord-cutters who may no longer subscribe to cable but still use their TV or monitor to access subscription services like Netflix, HBO Now, Hulu or Sling TV.</p>
<p>
These new household estimates seem to confirm what networks like CBS have long maintained: <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/dont-panic-says-cbs-more-people-are-watching-tv-now-decade-ago-166313" target="_blank">More people are watching TV now than a decade ago</a>, even if they are no longer doing so the same way they used to.</p>
<p>
Alan Wurtzel, NBCUniversal&#39;s president of research and media development, noted earlier this month that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/advertisers-beware-audiences-are-taking-longer-ever-watch-tv-shows-172781" target="_blank">audiences are taking longer than ever to watch TV shows</a> like the NBC comedy Superstore, which over four months of delayed viewing amassed a premiere 18-49 audience on par with The Voice&#39;s season premiere last fall. Delayed viewing is now &quot;the new normal,&quot; said Wurtzel, while live viewing &quot;is a choice, not a default. &hellip; This is a fundamental change in the way that people watch TV.&quot;</p>
<p>
While Nielsen&#39;s estimates don&#39;t shed any light on the cord-cutting controversy&mdash;while some studies find that <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/infographic-more-americans-are-saying-goodbye-cords-and-cable-169148" target="_blank">cord-cutting is on the rise</a>, several of the largest cable operators <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/how-big-cable-stemming-cord-cutting-tide-169417" target="_blank">have actually been adding subscribers</a>&mdash;it does indicate that there will be a larger audience than ever, at least eventually, for television content as the new TV season begins.</p>
TelevisionAlan WurtzelCablecord cuttingNBCUniversalNetworksNielsenRatingsFri, 26 Aug 2016 16:24:07 +0000173157 at http://www.adweek.comU.S. Adults Consume an Entire Hour More of Media Per Day Than They Did Just Last Yearhttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/us-adults-consume-entire-hour-more-media-day-they-did-just-last-year-172218
Jason Lynch<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/nielsen-q1-audience-hed-2016.png"> <p>
If you feel like you&#39;re spending more time than ever before watching and streaming content, you&#39;re right.</p>
<p>
U.S. adults spent 10 hours, 39 minutes a day consuming media in the first quarter of 2016. That&#39;s up a full hour from the first quarter of 2015, and it&#39;s thanks to a substantial increase in smartphone and tablet usage, according to Nielsen&#39;s Q1 2016 Total Audience Report.</p>
<p>
The report, which was released today, also found that half of all U.S. TV households now have access to at least one SVOD (subscription video on demand) service like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon. That&#39;s the same percentage of households with DVRs.</p>
<p>
Live TV usage among U.S. adults is still declining, down three minutes from the first quarter 2015, but not as rapidly as in recent years. Nielsen notes the live TV decline was much more pronounced between 2013 and 2014, when it dropped by 16 minutes.</p>
<p>
During the first three months of 2016, U.S. adults spent an average of four hours, 31 minutes watching live TV each day, which represented 42 percent of their overall daily media consumption. That&#39;s three minutes less than the four minute, 33 second daily consumption last year, a decline of just 1 percent.&nbsp;</p>
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The total media consumption across all devices and platforms jumped one hour from the first quarter of 2015, to 10 hours, 39 minutes. (A year earlier, there had only been a seven-minute year-over-year jump in daily media consumption.) That&#39;s mostly due to smartphone use, which has soared 37 minutes, and tablet use, which has increased 12 minutes. Internet on PC jumped 10 minutes, while multimedia devices, including Apple TV and Roku, were up four minutes. Video game consoles and DVR use was flat, while DVD use dipped one minute and live TV dropped three minutes year over year.</p>
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Nielsen&#39;s data indicates that consumers aren&#39;t pulling away from linear TV, but instead are making additional time for these new devices.</p>
<p>
However, most of the consumption on non-TV devices came from the top 20 percent of users for each category. Those top 20 percent account for 87 percent of in-home PC streaming, 83 percent of smartphone video, and 71 percent of connected TV devices like Apple TV, Roku and Xbox. But the top 20 percent of TV and DVR users only represent 52 percent of the total overall minutes watched on those devices.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Netflix, Amazon and Hulu catch up to DVRs</strong></p>
<p>
Meanwhile, Nielsen also found that SVODs like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have finally caught up to DVRs in U.S. households and are about to surpass them.</p>
<p>
Half of all U.S. TV households now have access to at least one SVOD service. That&#39;s the same percentage of households with DVRs.</p>
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But while DVR penetration has flatlined in recent years, hovering between 49 and 50 percent, SVOD penetration has increased rapidly, up from 41 percent just 18 months ago. So expect SVOD households to leave DVR households in the dust by later this year.</p>
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Currently, 29 percent of homes have both DVR and SVOD access&mdash;an increase of almost 20 percent from last year&mdash;and 72 percent of homes have either DVR or SVOD access, which is up from 67 percent last year.</p>
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The full Nielsen&#39;s Q1 2016 Total Audience Report is available <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2016/the-total-audience-report-q1-2016.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
TelevisionCableNetworksNielsenVideoMon, 27 Jun 2016 13:00:02 +0000172218 at http://www.adweek.comHow Advertising on Different Types of Media Affects Sales of Consumer Packaged Goodshttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-advertising-different-types-media-affects-sales-consumer-packaged-goods-171978
Emma Bazilian<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/2016_Jun/ncs-benchmarks-hed-2016.png"> <p>
The increase in sales that consumer packaged goods brands can expect as a result of ad campaigns varies widely by the media platform used to distribute those ads, according to a new study presented today by Nielsen Catalina Solutions at the Advertising Research Foundation&#39;s Audience Measurement 2016 conference in New York.</p>
<p>
To determine how spending on media directly affects sales, NCS analyzed more than 1,400 campaigns from 450 CPG brands in seven categories (baby, pet, health and beauty, general merchandise, food, beverage, and over-the-counter products) over 11 years and compared that with in-store purchase data. To determine which advertising platforms drove incremental sales, NCS isolated households that had been exposed to certain types of media&mdash;TV, online display, video, mobile, cross-platform and magazines&mdash;and compared their buying habits with those of unexposed households.</p>
<p>
The study found that magazines showed the highest return on advertising spend (ROAS) across all CPG categories, with an average return of $3.94 for every ad dollar spent. Display ads followed with an ROAS of $2.63. Digital video had the lowest ROAS at just $1.53.</p>
<p>
It was a different story, however, when the incremental sales driven by each media platform were compared with other audience metrics, including the number of households exposed to that platform and the number of impressions the campaign created. NCS found that TV drove the highest incremental sales per exposed household ($0.33), while display drove the lowest ($0.19). Mobile advertising resulted in the most sales per 1,000 impressions (an additional $26.52), while display ads resulted in the least ($16.96).</p>
<p>
NCS also studied the data for specific CPG categories, determining that baby products had the highest ROAS across all types of media, while over-the-counter had the lowest. Broken down by media platform, display advertising drove the highest ROAS for baby products, pet products and beverages, while magazine ads garnered the highest ROAS for food, general merchandise, health and beauty, and over-the-counter products.</p>
<p>
The type of creative used by a CPG campaign also affected ROAS: Reward/sweepstakes and promotion/coupon ads drove the highest returns, while recipes drove the lowest.</p>
Advertising & BrandingCPG marketingCPGsNielsenNielsen Catalina SolutionsPackaged GoodsTue, 14 Jun 2016 16:35:27 +0000171978 at http://www.adweek.comInfographic: What Music Festivalgoers Are Buying, Posting and Sharing http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/infographic-what-music-festivalgoers-are-buying-posting-and-sharing-171908
Carrie Cummings<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/gettyimages-522095004.png"> <p>
Summertime is here and more people are getting outdoors, especially for large music festivals. But just because everyone is outside enjoying the weather and music doesn&#39;t mean they&#39;ll be equally receptive to marketing and brand messaging. Concertgoers at three of the largest and most well-known U.S. music festivals&mdash;Coachella, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza&mdash;have distinctly different tastes and spending habits. Nielsen took a deeper dive into the demos at each festival to provide better marketing insights. &quot;Two festivals may look very similar demographically, but if I&#39;m a brand manager trying to pick a festival I can sponsor to promote my bourbon brand, it would be important for me to know if the Bonnarroo fan or the Coachella fan is a more active bourbon drinker,&quot; said Nielsen branded film and music director Matt Yazge. &quot;And knowing what behaviors these fans engage in when they&#39;re at the festival would help me understand if it&#39;s more important to include a Snapchat Geofilter as part of my activation, or promote a brand hashtag on Instagram.&quot;</p>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="meta-credit">Carlos Monteiro</span></p>
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<em>This story first appeared in the June 13, 2016 issue of Adweek magazine.<br />
<a href="/subscribe-appeared" target="_blank">Click here to subscribe.</a></em></p>
Advertising & BrandingBonnarooCoachellaData PointsLollapaloozaMagazine ContentNielsenMon, 13 Jun 2016 23:55:56 +0000171908 at http://www.adweek.com